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'Nobody Doubted That He Had Weapons Of Mass Destruction': Interview with US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, July 31

'Interview of National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice by ZDF German television, Eisenhower Executive Office Building, July 31, 2003'; White House transcript, released by the Office of the Press Secretary, Crawford, Texas, August 28.

Question: Europeans, increasingly, especially after the Iraq crisis, have a suspicion that America is not really looking for allies any more, but rather for followers. The difference being that an ally can determine the course of action, or be part of the determination. A follower just follows. And it seems that in many important cases, from land mine ban, from Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, to the International Criminal Court, America seems to say, it's either our way or no way. We are strong enough to determine what's done and what's not done. And you either lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Dr. Rice: Well, there, clearly, will be differences from time to time - even among the strongest allies - on what to do about a specific set of issues. Yes, the United States has had real difficulties with the International Criminal Court. We are a country that believes very much in the sovereignty of our own Constitution over our citizens. And so we've been concerned about that. But if you look at the cooperation that we've had in the criminal court dealing with the tribunals in Yugoslavia, you see that the United States is not opposed to the principle of having tribunals to try to war crimes. We've had very good cooperation on the big issues, on the expansion of NATO, of bringing Russia toward the West. We have a big job to do in Afghanistan. One of the places that Germany has been really quite remarkable, and in fact, probably after the United States, the most important country, is in Afghanistan, in the leadership of the International Security Assistance Force. We have many, many examples - the World Trade Organization - many examples where we are working together very, very well. Occasionally, we'll have differences. But that does not mean that the United States does not value its allies, does not value the opinions of its allies. And it, most especially, does not mean that we don't need allies. We need allies and need them badly.

Question: When the United Nations cannot be the system of checks and balances, even for the largest of the players on the globe, where are checks and balances coming from in the future when America says, we are entitled to preemptive strikes when we feel that our security is threatened? Even after the Iraqi experience, when it is now in doubt internationally that the real reason for the war was actually there, America still says, we determine what's good for us, and if the United Nations helps us, great. If not, we go it alone.

Dr. Rice: Well, the interesting thing about the Iraq case was that the United Nations had determined that Saddam Hussein was a threat. This is a regime that was sanctioned by the United Nations 17 times in resolutions, many of them referring directly to the threat of his weapons of mass destruction. This was a regime in which the United Nations had tried to put inspectors into the country, only to have them effectively pulled out of the country because they couldn't do their work. These were - this was a regime that had lost a war in 1991, signed on to a set of obligations to the United Nations, and then systematically violated them. And so the idea that somehow this was an American decision to deal with the Iraqi regime, what the United States finally did - not just the United States but a number of other countries, as well - is to say that if UN resolutions are to actually matter, if countries are not just to violate them without - with impunity, to have no responsibility for violating those, then the UN is not going to be very strong. The Security Council is not going to be very strong. And, indeed, Resolution 1441, the one that set up new inspections was a 15 to 0 vote of the UN Security Council. So, yes, we had a disagreement in the final analysis of what means to use to deal with the Iraqi crisis. But that Iraq was a threat, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq had used those weapons of mass destruction on its neighbors and its own people, that Iraq had ambitions in the volatile region of the Middle East and was therefore a danger to international security, these were shared premises of the entire international community represented by the 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions that sanctioned Iraq.

Question: Does that mean it is not all that important that within the next six or 12 months, my friend David Kay [former senior UN weapons inspector in Iraq, appointed by the White House to lead the Iraq Survey Team] will find proof for weapons of mass destruction?

Dr. Rice: Going into the war against Iraq, we had very strong intelligence. I've been in this business for 20 years. And some of the strongest intelligence cases that I've seen, key judgments by our intelligence community that Saddam Hussein could have a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade, if left unchecked; that he had biological and chemical weapons; that he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program. We had very strong intelligence going in. Nobody doubted that he had weapons of mass destruction. Now, we are now in Iraq. And as you mentioned, David Kay is systematically going to understand precisely what happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the state of their programs. We do know that this was a program that over 12 years was built for deception. We know that it was a program that took into account the fact that there might be inspectors in the country, the fact that there were sanctions, and that designed the program, therefore - the Iraqi regime designed the program so that it couldn't be discovered. And so it will take some time, but we're uncovering, literally, miles of documents. We are coming into contact with more and more people who were a part of the programs. And we will be able to put together a full picture of what Saddam Hussein was really intending to do. But I have no doubt that that picture will confirm that this was a regime that was a grave threat to international peace and security because of its intent on having the world's worst weapons.

Question: Would you agree that for the next case down the road - history will tell what it is - American credibility rests on proving that case?

Dr. Rice: The case against Iraq was not just an issue of American intelligence. It was an issue, also, of intelligence services around the world; of UN reports that there were large quantities of missing chemical and biological agents; of defectors - including Saddam Hussein's own brother-in-laws, who had left the country and revealed major weapons programs. No, there is no issue of credibility here. The case going in was one in which everyone shared the view that this was a country that had weapons of mass destruction, that had tried to use - had used weapons of mass destruction. And you had to believe, somehow, that after the inspectors left the country in 1998, that this had somehow gotten better between 1998 and 2003. It's just not plausible.

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